A strange day for the Grand Tours as Giro d’Italia route also leaked

On the day that the Tour de France website inadvertently published the 2012 race route, more than a week before its official unveiling, the Giro d’Italia has done likewise, tuttobiciweb.it reports. This morning the Italian news site published a speculative estimate of the route, as developed by the Italian media based on research around the country. This evening though, amateur journalist Michele Bufalino – the man that claimed to have discovered Fabian Cancellara’s ‘doped bike’ in the spring – found that the Giro’s website had an unprotected page in its English language section that listed each stage.

Like the inadvertently published Tour page, the Giro stage lists had no links attached, and no details about climbs tackled, but each stage did have the distance listed.

The Giro organiser RCS Sport has already released details of the first three days of the race, which sees the Giro start in Denmark for the first time; there will then be a rest day, when the peloton will travel to Italy. RCS Sport has also published the details of the seventeenth stage, which is to cross the Dolomiti mountains – including the Passo di Giau – and finish in Cortina d’Ampezza.

What the leaked stage list shows is that on arrival in Italy, the peloton will ride a 32.2km team time trial in the city of Verona, where the race itself finished in 2010. The route will then head south along the east coast of the country, before heading north once more through the centre of the country, via the city of Assisi, and Montecatini Terme in Tuscany, which is to co-host the World championships in 2013.

On arrival back in the north of the country, the Giro will take in stages in Piemonte and Lombardia, including a finish on the Pian dei Resinelli, just outside Lecco. Following the second rest day, the race will then cross the top of the country to Trentino-Alto Adige, where it will spend several days in the Dolomiti, including the Cortina stage.

Despite being a more humane Giro than the 2011 edition, the 2012 race will feature two back to back summit finishes in the final three days; firstly to the Alpe di Pampeago, followed by a finish on the 2758 metre Passo dello Stelvio, on a stage that is to also include the dreaded Passo del Mortirolo.

Just as the 2011 race did, next year’s Giro is to finish with a time trial in Milan.

Exactly how much of the ‘leaked’ route is actually true will be revealed on October 16th, this coming Sunday, when the 2012 Corsa Rosa will officially be announced in Milan.